The principle of public access to official documents is applied in Sweden in order to guarantee an open society with access to information about the work of the Riksdag, Government and government agencies. As Umeå University is a government agency, the principle of public access also applies to our operations – not least to research conducted here.
In reality, that means that many documents in a research project needs to be filed into archives. Research documents must be kept, but also be made accessible to anyone who wishes to access these official documents. Beside the central archives, there are currently nearly 60 archives at our departments.
Incomplete archive register
The Internal Audit Office's audit covered five departments. All have appointed an archive coordinator and have established archival descriptions and an archive register. But still, in most of the cases, a majority of the department's research documents are not in the register. And to one of the five departments, the archive register only covers parts of the operations. Also, in many cases, an old and invalid classification structure is used.
All departments seem to have established procedures to document primary data in research projects according to good research practice. Nevertheless, since routines in writing and knowledge about the legal framework is lacking at the departments, it is up to the individual head of research to continuously make sure that material is stored, and in the best-case scenario – also archived. Primary data is often spread out across various project participants and in certain cases, primary data can be completely missing after a researcher has left the University.
The Vice-Chancellor's Office has previously established a plan for document handling, which contains rules and regulations regarding what research documents need to be stored, together with a handbook in archiving that contains practical information on the handling of research documents and data. Both the plan and the handbook will be revised in 2017.
The e-document directive is being neglected
When it comes to electronic documents, the Swedish National Archives established a directive in 2009 stipulating mandatory steps in the handling of these documents. At Umeå University, no corresponding directive has been developed. This has resulted in several departments in the audit showing a lack of common routines for backup of data.
The Vice-Chancellor's Office has hence drafted a plan for storing electronic data that will be raised for decision by the Vice-Chancellor before the end of 2017.
Inadequate archival premises
The Internal Audit Office has also audited the premises used for archiving at the five departments. In several cases, the premises are structurally inadequate when it comes to fire safety and water protection, but also as regards to routines on who has access to the archives.
The Internal Audit Office is particularly critical towards the archival premises provided by the Västerbotten County Council:
"If the county council cannot provide higher performing archival premises than what is currently offered, we deem it necessary for the University to find other solutions," states the Internal Audit Office's joint assessment.
A recommendation from the Internal Audit Office is to set up a centrally controlled process for the allocation of archival premises, as it is unreasonable for each head of department to have sufficient knowledge to assess if the premises lives up to the Swedish National Archives' regulations regarding details in the premises' design and conditions.
The University Administration has been assigned by the University Management to investigate the opportunities to introduce such a process.
For more information, please contact:
Eva-Lisa Holmström, archivist at the Vice-Chancellor's Office
Further information:
Archiving research information